DIY “House of Truth” for Apologia’s Who is God? Worldview Curriculum

Worldview (also known as Apologetics) is a class that our family started incorporating into our homeschool two years ago. In our opinion, along with daily Bible study and worship of the Lord, it is foundational in raising our children. Teaching our sons who God is and why our faith matters in this world as well as what truths the Bible has to teach us is our primary focus in school. Academics, although important, are secondary.

[box type=”bio”] Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6[/box]

We have used and loved Apologia’s World View Curriculum – Who is God? (And Can I Really Know Him?) curriculum. There are four books in the series that take a child (and their parents through) all the facets of understanding what shapes our worldview, authentic faith and how to apply our faith to our lives and help others to understand God and Jesus from a Christian perspective. It is useful for ages 6-14 and after that Apologia offers some other great continuing Apologetics books.

This first book that we learned from was planned to take about one school year to complete but our family decided to make it a two year course. We figured it was more important to actually learn deeply who God is and those foundations rather than rush through the book. There are a lot of deep concepts in the curriculum that were important to be sure our little sweeties understood. I even learned a lot from this course and can’t wait for the next one. Pretty much all of these things I was never taught in public school and some of them not even in churches I have attended so it was a wonderful root deepener for me as well.

I highly recommend Apologias Worldview training series for planting roots in your child’s faith and understanding of Christianity.

With that background, I wanted to share a post about our DIY “House of Truth.”

The “House of Truth is something that Apologia recommends constructing at the completion of each of the lessons during the course. Basically, it is a visual model of the foundational truths of Christianity. In the book they suggest the purchase of a kit to create the house of truth and in order to save money and be a little more creative we decided to make our own.

My boys love Legos® and it was only natural to make our House of Truth out of Legos®.

In the house of truth there are 11 sections corresponding with what each chapter focused on in the book:

During the two year course we built a mini version of this House of Truth to keep in our school room and add to when we finished each lesson. For our final project we built this larger version that is pictured. We wanted to build a larger one so that we could label each section and review what we learned in each section and what the Biblical Truths meant. It was a great end to a thorough course.

Although this is not a curriculum review post I did want to say that we were able to incorporate my 5 year old into this class (with very basic understanding) and he used the coloring book that goes along with the Who is God book. My older son used the supplementary Junior Notebooking Journal to continue to explore and apply the principles and precepts in the book. They are great additions to this course study.

[box type=”bio”] Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you—a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:1-9[/box]

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Comments

I see in some of the comments over the years, that people have requested a template…I was planning to ask if you knew how many legos and what kind of legos are in each section… I don’t suppose you’d be willing to make a template? I’d love to do this, but I will need to buy some legos to complement the ones we have, and I would want to buy the actual ones we need. If that’s not something you want to put the time into, I understand, though! Thank you!

Hi Sally, Yes I have mentioned over the years about doing a template and still may. What I realized though is that a true template can’t be done until the fourth book is finished and the entire House of Truth is taught about. As I went through the books with my boys, I noticed that the HOT has many layers and this particular build (in this post) doesn’t encompass those. With that, I have been waiting to do the fourth book with my kids. When I do that, I may create a template. In the meantime, get creative like we did and allow your kids to take the reigns. They will be something perfect regardless of having a template. Kids and Legos go hand in hand!

Hi Tracey, Thanks for reaching out. The links that are in this post link to the Apologia materials like the book, notebooking journal, etc. When I posted this, I didn’t include directions to create the House of Truth out of Legos. It’s a great idea and if enough people requested it I would be willing to do that. I think what most people have done with this post is use it as a jumping off idea to create their own version of the House of Truth out of Lego.s I hope this helps and gets your creative juices flowing to build one with your boys!

I was a little confused and am hoping you can clear my confusion. You only reference above that you have done the 1st volume of the What We Believe series yet it appears you are showing the entire “House of Truth” model? The description of the “House” in the how to use this book for volume 1 says that the “House” is built over all 4 volumes. It appears to me that your model is just incorporating the 1st volume. Am I mistaken? Thanks!!

At the time of doing this model my children and I had only gone through volume one of the What We Believe series. Really this model only incorporates the components from that book. As you can see, there is the rock, the foundation, the four biblical truths, the fellowship wall (which is only one wall out of the four in a completed four book house of truth), and the four pillars on the fellowship wall. All those components only reference the first book. If it was created to encompass the entire four book series there would be 3 more walls and 12 more pillars and there’s not. Hopefully, that helps you with your confusion.

Be sure to stay tuned to Feasting On Joy because eventually (when we finish all four books) I will be placing in my downloadables shop templates for a House of Truth model that incorporates all four books and has all the components needed to create the entire House of Truth with your kids in a very inexpensive way. I can’t wait to share it!

Hi Christina!
Thank you for inquiring. I can see that this was confusing. I have updated the comment with the link in it to reflect what’s happening. I’m sorry for the confusion! I do still plan on putting a template in my shop for an actual model built out of foam core that incorporates all four books. The reason it is not there yet is that we had to veer off a little in our homeschool and still have one book to finish. Once that is complete (or maybe a little earlier) I will be posting the template. Thanks for your patience! In the interim, I would encourage you to get creative and ask your kids (if they’re old enough) what their ideas are for a homemade house of truth model.

This is a great idea! We are currently working through the first book in this series with my three monkey boys, who also love Legos! I really wanted to purchase the House of Truth model, but I can’t find it for less than $125 (which personally, I find extremely expensive!). I’m having a hard time myself imagining this from the book alone, but your photos have already helped immensely! I think we will also be building a model from Legos! THANK YOU! 🙂

Hi Christina, I am so glad this helped you for the House of Truth model. I agree, $125 was too steep for me – especially for what you get. We are in the second book this year and planning on doing another one for this year. I will post that at the end of the year. Lego’s are always a hit with boys. Thank you for your kind comment. Blessings to you!

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